Diagnostic and therapeutic catheters are used commonly by physicians for diagnosis of conditions within bodily organs or cavities. An important application relates to catheters used for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes within the heart. Various in vivo procedures require the simultaneous use of more than one catheter. For example, several different catheters might be used, each placed within different sites within the heart. Such catheters may be provided with steering mechanisms so that the placement can be accurately controlled from outside the body. Other catheters are non-steerable but are, nonetheless, accurately placed within the body by a physician.
In the past, various catheters have been provided utilizing a color coding system as a means of distinguishing one catheter from another. In such cases, the distinction between catheters is typically linked to the characteristics of the catheter rather than the placement of the catheter within the body. In such systems, however, problems as to maintaining the identity of each of two identical catheters presents difficulty to the physician. A need has, thus, existed for a system for more accurately identifying individual catheters, in these and other similar situations.